:42:00
On September 13th,
:42:03
what were they talking about?
:42:06
Were they commiserating?
:42:08
Or comparing notes?
:42:11
Why would Bandar's government
:42:14
block American investigators
:42:16
from talking to the relatives
:42:17
of the fifteen hijackers?
:42:22
Why would Saudi Arabia become reluctant
:42:24
to freeze the hijackers' assets?
:42:30
The two of them rocked out on the Truman Balcony
:42:32
so that Bandar could smoke a cigar and have a drink.
:42:36
In the distance, across the Potomac,
:42:39
was the Pentagon, partially in ruins.
:42:42
I wonder if Mr. Bush told Prince Bandar not to worry
:42:46
because he already had a plan in motion.
:42:50
You come in September 12th,
:42:52
ready to plot what response we take to al Qaeda.
:42:56
Let me talk to you about the response
:42:58
that you got from top administration officials.
:43:00
On that day, what did the President say to you?
:43:03
The President, in a very intimidating way,
:43:05
left us - me and my staff -
:43:07
with the clear indication
:43:09
that he wanted us to come back with the word
:43:11
that there was an Iraqi hand behind 9/11
:43:13
because they had been planning to do something
:43:15
about Iraq from before the time they came to office.
:43:18
Did he ask about any other nations other than Iraq?
:43:20
No. No no no. No. Not at all. It was Iraq, Saddam,
:43:22
find out, get back to me.
:43:24
And were his questions more about Iraq
:43:26
than about al Qaeda?
:43:27
Absolutely.
:43:28
Absolutely.
:43:29
He didn't ask my about al Qaeda.
:43:30
And the reaction you got
:43:31
that day from the defense secretary,
:43:32
Donald Rumsfeld?
:43:33
And his assistant, Paul Wolfowitz?
:43:34
Well, Don Rumsfeld said, uh,
:43:36
when we talked about bombing the al Qaeda
:43:38
infrastructure in Afghanistan,
:43:40
he said there were no good targets in Afghanistan,
:43:42
let's bomb Iraq.
:43:44
And we said but Iraq had nothing to do with this.
:43:46
And that didn't seem to make much difference.
:43:49
And the reason they had to do Afghanistan first
:43:51
was it was obvious that al Qaeda had attacked,
:43:53
and it was obvious that al Qaeda was in Afghanistan.
:43:57
The American people wouldn't have stood by
:43:59
if we had done nothing on Afghanistan.